£2.7MILLION collected in fines from the new Mersey Gateway

THE new Mersey Gateway generated £2.775 million through fines in the first three months of the controversial bridge’s existence.

Freedom of Information (FOI) figures reveal that between the opening of the bridge in October 2017 to January 31 2018, the Mersey Gateway operators made more than £2.7 million in penalty charge notices from drivers who failed to pay the £2 toll charge.

The same request shows that in total, the bridge pulled in £15 million overall in that same time frame.

It means that the money made from fines represents 18.5 per cent of the total profit made from the bridge in those three months.

Tweeting the findings, campaign group Scrap Mersey Tolls described the figure as 'shocking' and speculated that after another three months of fines, the figure would now be much higher.

Previous FOI figures have also revealed Mersey Gateway is issuing PCNS at the rate of 800,000 a year.

A spokesperson from the campaign group said: “Local politicians should be ashamed that they have inflicted such a widespread burden of financial misery.”

This comes after traffic expert Dr Adam Snow, revealed that an error in the wording of the PCNs could effect Halton Council’s powers to legally enforce them.

At a crucial Mersey Gateway hearing last Tuesday, it was revealed that the wording of some PCNs had been copied and pasted from the Dartford Crossing and said the fines were enforcable by the Secretary of State.

Dartford crossing fines are payable to the Government, but Mersey Gateway fines are paid to Merseyflow and it is Halton Council, not the Secretary of State, who authorise this.

Dr Snow, a senior law lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University with a PHD in road fines, said this error was known as a ‘procedural impropriety’ and in his view would be grounds for contesting any PCN that said it was issued on the authority of the Secretary of State.

However he added that anyone who had already paid the PCN despite this error might not be so lucky as to get a refund because to an extent, they 'accepted their fate and paid already'.

Tuesday’s hearing saw a lawyer from Halton Council contest a landmark Traffic Penalty Tribunal ruling that said the controversial tolls did not comply with the Transport Act 2000, because Halton council had not specified the exact price of the tolls clearly in their Road User Charging Order Scheme (RUSCO), which enforces the tolls.

That TPT ruling, made in April, put 456 appeals against PCNs on hold.

An independent adjudicator is expected to make a decision of the legality of the tolls and consequent PCNs in the next week.

Halton Borough Council confirmed that the figures in the FOI result were correct.

Ipsoregulated

This website and associated newspapers adhere to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice. If you have a complaint about the editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then please contact the editor here. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can contact IPSO here